


Know you why the robin's breast (gleameth of a dusky red)

by LeGacyOfSpaces (TheBeatersBlack)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Bat Family, Batfamily Feels, Bonding over death, Brother Feels, Brothers, Dick Grayson pretended to be dead, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forgive Me, Gen, I've never done this before, Jason Todd is my favorite, Jaybird, POV Dick Grayson, Reconciliation, Takes place in a nebulous timeline after Grayson #12, also discussion of Bruce's failings, and poor sweet baby was a moron and did the thing, because Bruce was like..., because yikes, but no actual dying in this story, do the thing, his brothers are not best pleased, just as an aside, so Jason can hear that you died, talk about death and duing, this is a mash of so many timelines and storylines I think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 14:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12819438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBeatersBlack/pseuds/LeGacyOfSpaces
Summary: “We don’t lie.  ROBINS don’t lie to each other, Dick.” It was the same sentiment from earlier, hitting him square on, and Jason’s eyes were hard—too much steel there to let any of their wide-open blue, their hints of pit-green through.  “You were Robin long before you were Batman. I know you remember.  How it feels. To be a bird. Alone, in the night, wondering if the Bat gives a damn about you when you aren’t flanking him. When you aren’t called upon to be a distraction.”“Jay—““Don’t tell me you don’t remember. It’s why you hated me when I came along.”----Agent 37's mission is over.  Dick Grayson finally comes home.  Now the important work begins.





	Know you why the robin's breast (gleameth of a dusky red)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work on the archive, so forgive the iceberg of errors. It's some ungodly marriage of so many DC timelines, and I'm very aware of this, but I've read them all out of order and I've decided somewhere in my brain that I want these characters to inhabit this space like this. Forgive it, I hope to tempt you with brother drama. Constructive comments would be like sunlight. And if people see this and actually want more, well, that would drive me to do something maybe.
> 
> I didn't expect to write a story in Dick's POV. He's lovely, but I usually find the other bat brothers more compelling. But suddenly he attacked me. He's a rogue.
> 
> \--edits made because I kept slipping tenses like WHOOPS!

KNOW you why the robin's breast  
Gleameth of a dusky red,  
Like the lustre mid the stars  
Of the potent planet Mars?  
'Tis--a monkish myth has said--  
Owing to his cordial heart;  
For, long since, he took the part  
Of those hapless children, sent  
Hadean-ward for punishment;  
And, to quench the fierce desire,  
Bred in them by ruthless fire,  
Brought on tiny bill and wing,  
Water from some earthly spring

\---A NEW VERSION OF WHY THE ROBIN'S BREAST IS RED (Paul Hamilton Hayne)

 

If Dick thought he’d find solace in the old safe house—after the particularly negative reception he’d gotten from his first two little brothers—well, that all went out the window the moment Jason followed him…through the window.

“Can we do this in the daylight?” Dick asked, pacing the space between the kitchen and the living room, fighting the trapped—trapped—itch that poked under his skin as he watched his brother watch him. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to do more than enter the system kill codes and check that the water was still turned on. Sheets covered the couch and the love seat in the living room, and who the hell dared hope of the state of the kitchen cupboards.

Dick’s stomach rumbled and they both ignored it.

“Nah, I’m thinking we keep the lines of communication open,” Jason said with a grin that would be dazzling if it didn’t so sharply resemble Damian’s gala-smile (the one Dick conned out of him with promises of new weaponry and yes, fine, you can drive the Batmobile, but for like twenty minutes and then you’re going to shut your face. In fact, The Smile was so effective at chasing away guests in droves that half the family kept it in mind as an exit strategy from awkward conversations, if only they could convince the brat to conjure it up. His real smiles—for all that they were hard-won—were almost worth keeping away from socialites' prying eyes).

Some things shouldn’t be given away. Thrown away.

Dick scowled at his own oft-uttered words coming back at him. “I’m willing to let the lines of communication sit ‘til tomorrow if you are,” he said, his own grin sharp.

Like a switch being flipped, the playful act vanished and it was the Red Hood’s stance that stood between him and—and what? He wasn’t in costume, his wallet and keys were in his coat pocket, and Jason was standing inside the living room. Dick could just turn around and walk out the front door (quickly), or even exit through the kitchen window and down the fire escape (even quicker). Still. The shadow his brother cast made the decision to stand his ground one in need of constant renewal. 

“We don’t lie. ROBINS don’t lie to each other, Dick.” It was the same sentiment from earlier, hitting him square on, and Jason’s eyes were hard—too much steel there to let any of their wide-open blue, their hints of pit-green through. “You were Robin long before you were Batman. I know you remember. How it feels. To be a bird. Alone, in the night, wondering if the Bat gives a damn about you when you aren’t flanking him. When you aren’t called upon to be a distraction.”

“Jay—“

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember. It’s why you hated me when I came along.”

“I didn’t—“

“’S why I hated Timmy—though, let’s be fair, there was a lot of hellscape overlap going on in my head and the kid got some of the backlash.” There was something heavy lingering in his expression. Dick’s chest ached.

He didn’t try to speak again. Jason was a run-away train, a rebel invasion, a perfectly-dosed paralytic—one of Ivy’s finest, tuned and tailored to root him in place but to hold his mind fast to the clarity of every moment—and if he struggled, the ending would be that much bloodier. It would end with these same words seeping out of his little brother’s mouth as he lay in an alleyway, life unspooling days, weeks, months from now. It would end with Jason already, like always, beyond anyone’s reach. Dick’s nightmares could merge with some fucked up reality that was only two heartbeats away. 

So many nights when The Case was the only thing left to stand in Jason’s stead, his pieced together uniform testifying to the agony of his last moments, Dick had remembered the card he’d given the boy with his phone number. Too little too late. He had wondered how long Jason had waited alone before even his ceaseless fight hadn’t been enough. 

Then, after Red Hood’s rise—after they knew, but before any of them really tried to understand—Dick would gasp awake and throw himself across his apartment (or his room at the manor, or the Tower, or the Mount) and heave into the toilet. He’d wonder why. Always he’d been talking, talking, and half the time it wasn’t even the words he’d wanted to say, but a mishmash of Bruce and Alfred and fucking SUPERMAN, that he’d ground together and tried to baby-bird into a belligerent (rightly so, old chum) Jason. Why hadn’t he listened? 

That’s all he ever wondered with Jason—would it really have killed Dick to swallow his pride, be—not the bigger man, but the big brother he was supposed to be, that he WANTED to be—to tolerate the reek of cheap (then later European) cigarettes blown playfully in his face, and LISTEN. To the kid. 

The kid with all the rage in the world curled into a snarl at the corner of his mouth and eyes like windows gaping into a haunted house. They’d always been like that, as long as Dick had known him. As if the things inside him were just as afraid of everyone else as everyone else was of his unchecked, poltergeist personality.

None of them—Bruce, Dick, Babs…maybe Alfred. The butler seemed to understand Bruce’s second son like no one else—had ever given him enough credit back then. Jason had never lashed out without a reason. There had always been some tangled, heart-breaking answer to his more extreme behavior, when they’d taken the time to prise it out of him.

It hadn’t changed. Dick had too many people under his wing. He’d rationalized that he couldn’t spend the time to figure out Jason’s insane reasoning. Red Hood was irredeemable. 

And yet. 

How many times could you fail the same person—the same people—before you were left alone? 

Bruce was pushing for the record. He hadn’t been like that before. Before the uniform Dick had finally chosen to bequeath had been hung in legacy in a glass case with the infernal label, “A GOOD SOLDIER,” for longer than it had been worn. Maybe the parallel question was: how many times could you fail to save someone before you start to leave them waiting on purpose?

Jason watched him now with eyes boarded up, and Dick wondered what horrors went on inside that house. What specters trailed the halls, and who held the keys?  


Jason wasn’t done. “It’s why Tim hates his replacement.”

Dick closed his eyes, unsure which hurt more—Jason’s use of 'replacement' or that he said 'hates' and not 'hated.'

“Do you know what we all have in common, Dickie?” Jason asked, the smirk of his lips a coil of rage.

There was a lot Dick could say. He could say—

 

'We all wore the yellow, green, and red. We all wore the crest. So did Stephanie. She hates Bruce, sometimes still. More than sometimes. Maybe Robin is hope that’s baptized in betrayal. Maybe it’s the only way we can let it go.' He could say—

'We’re all supposed to be siblings, but none of us were really raised together. Bruce can’t seem to maintain an overlap of children without instilling an unhealthy parental dynamic between them or a caustic sense of competition. He’s an only child, raised by a bachelor butler, but you can only give him so many passes. After the third time his kids came to legitimate blows, you would assume he’d open a doc on the Bat Computer and troubleshoot that shit.' He could say—

'We’re each just as alone as the other. We don’t have to be, but none of us knows how to fix it. Is it really too late for Damian?'

But Dick didn't say any of those things. 

“We’re magic,” said Dick, watching his brother’s windows carefully.

Jason blinked. His head tipped to the side. 

“The hell?” A crack shunted open, a glint of blue amidst the black, and Dick dove for it—no net.

“I took on Robin for me. I didn’t know I was starting something, I didn’t know the burden I’d be passing on—the weight of privilege. I wouldn’t have given that to any of you happily, Jay, that wasn’t just me and you. Wasn’t just me being an ass about giving up the mantle—though there was that.”

Jason’s mouth went a little slack.

Dick pressed on, the words burning their way out of him, toxin he should have purged a lifetime ago, before he donned the cowl, before he decided on any alliance when things weren’t right inside of him. When, when was the last time things had been right?

“But I know it’s bigger than me now, and you—all of you—can make your own choices. Hell, a lot of you were plenty older than I was when I started out.” He rubbed his palms on the legs of his jeans, smoothing panic sweat into the material. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, being the intermediary between you all and B. It’s insane! Aside from maybe you, I’m the one you who’s had the most frequent and batshit—ha! (Jason’s lips twitched)—fights with him. Why am I the go-between?”

“Because I died,” said Jason.

Dick—he shivered. “Yeah. Everything would have been different if—“ He stopped. Shook his head. He could say so many things, but the thing that seemed most important, the words that raced their way up his throat and past his lips were—

“The only reason why I tried to be a better brother for Tim was because I wished—with everything I was, Jay, that you were alive. I knew I couldn’t do right by you, but I thought—maybe I can keep from fucking it up again.”

Jason didn’t speak and Dick’s breath started to come faster and faster.

“I never wanted to replace you. I know it doesn’t mean much to hear—“ 

“Spyral?” Jay asked quietly. That heavy something was wrapped around his expression again. His hands were fisted in the pockets of his leather jacket.

Dick gusted out a pained sigh. “Bruce thought it was a perfect opportunity.”

His brother nodded, like he was actually considering that as a valid contribution to the conversation. “Did you agree?”

“Eventually,” Dick said through grit teeth. “How else would it have gone down? He couldn’t force me into undercover work.”

The other man shrugged, jacket creaking. “Dipping your toe into Death’s kiddie pool can be mildly traumatic. That experience could easily be used by Daddy-Bats to wrangle the argument.” His grin was brutal. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Dick froze. Jason watched him with that slightly cocked head like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb. But then—he’d become rather fond of explosives.

“How do you—“

Jason’s expression softened by several degrees. All of a sudden, his height and bulk weren’t as imposing—like he’d tucked some of it away. 

“After I came back,” he said, hand emerging from his pocket to scratch at the back of his head, “I could feel it on other people.”

“Feel it,” Dick repeated numbly.

Jason hummed. “You know how you can hear a little sound—a buzz, kinda—from a TV when you turn everything off but the screen? Like, it’s black, and it looks like it’s off, but there’s this slight noise. It creeps up in the room, swells bigger until you really notice it. Like tinnitus, but it’s not coming from your own ear.” He looked down, grimacing. “’Course, I can hear it on me, and that’s a bit like tinnitus. A sharp whine that’s just… ” He waggled his fingers in the air, “…there. Never goes away. Need noise to drown it out.” Black combat boots shuffled on the old wood flooring, and Dick noticed that there wasn’t any dust. 

Dick tried to understand. “You can hear that I died?”

A shrug, his frame suddenly boyish. “It’s kinda a sound, kinda a feeling. Makes the hair on my arms stand up sometimes. This one time at a lighthouse—“ He cleared his throat. “But with you, it’s not that strong. So I know you died, Dickie-bird, but it wasn’t for too long. She didn’t have you for too long.” 

Dick’s hands clenched at his sides. He stood inside this room in a safe house that he knew his brothers had protected, hadn’t altered, but had clearly maintained, and tried to focus on breathing. 

He watched Jason, waiting.

The eyes darted up again, and Dick wondered why he’d ever wanted them to open up to him. He was as helpless as he’d ever been facing down any of their cornucopia of freakish foes, but this wasn’t the Red Hood pinning him down. And he wasn’t Batman, or Nightwing, or Robin—or Agent 37, a low rasp murmured in his mind—he was just Dick Grayson, a true prodigal, come home after burning through the excess of his family’s trust and faith and grief. 

Maybe not their forgiveness. Maybe there was hope yet for every Robin left waiting in the night.

“I’m sorry you died, Dick,” Jason said. His mouth was flat. 

Dick gasped, and it felt like the first time—like there hadn’t been the chance to draw breath since his heart had started beating again. The safe house came into focus—the pools of moonlight on covered furniture (it was ratty and replaceable, they shouldn’t have bothered—it spoke of Alfred’s influence), the well-thumbed stack of paperbacks near the kitchen window, the tangle of power cords worming their way out from around a bookshelf, the worn-down bit of charcoal incongruous on an otherwise clear counter.

Dick swallowed. “I’m—“ 

“You have to stop being a fucking idiot.” Jason’s face twisted into a scowl. “For the kid, if not for anyone else. We don’t need a good soldier, I don’t care what Daddy told you.”

Dick’s face crumpled.

Jason crushed him against his chest, squeezing him in a warm press of leather and smoke until he didn’t have to think about returning the hug (he would have if his body would cooperate, but he was pins and needles all over)—because it was impossible. Dick leaned his face into the noisy leather of his little (huge) brother’s shoulder and shut his eyes.

“Can you hear Damian?” Dick found himself asking.

For a moment, Jason didn’t answer. Then, “That kid’s the loudest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dick wormed his arms around until he could wrap them around Jason in turn.

“Louder than you?”

A scoff. “It’s all relative. It sounds different inside your own head.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “I bet it does.”

“We’re coming down on you especially hard right now because B doesn’t remember. You know that, right?”

Dick nodded. “I deserve it though.”

A chuckle vibrated through him. “Oh, you bet your disco-loving ass you do. However.”

“However?”

Jason hummed, nudging them apart to get a good look at his face. “Far be it from me to set a precedent that a man shouldn’t be able to make a few shit decisions when he comes back from the dead.”

Dick’s laugh was watery, and he didn’t even think to defend it. 

“Far be it. I don’t suppose you know if I have any edible food in my kitchen?” he asked, only semi-hopefully.

Jason gave him a long look. “You’ve got shit to eat,” he said finally. “Non-perishables. Plus, there’s frozen things.” Then, he tugged Dick through the kitchen and towards the door. 

“What? Where are we going?”

“Come back here in the daylight and set it to rights,” Jason said, his tone breezy, but his grip on Dick’s arm was firm. “Right now we’re going to get pizza. You’re going to crash on my couch.” He turned and fixed Dick with a stare. “And you’re gunna shut up about it.”

“Thanks. Thanks, Little Wing,” Dick said, leaning their shoulders together. They re-armed the apartment and exited the building in silence. Jason shot him a few looks.

“You good?”

Dick nodded. “Yup.”

Jason placed the order as they walked, and then their footfalls merged with the evening clamor of Gotham. Finally, he turned to Dick.

“Seriously, you okay?”

“Sure.”

“Then why the silent act? You’re freaking me out. Feels like you’re bleeding out from a secret gunshot wound to the gut and you just forgot to mention it.”

Dick laughed. “Nope, not injured. Sorry, it’s habit now, I guess. To keep the chatter to a minimum.” He wasn’t injured—though that’s totally something all of them would pull and had pulled before. “Talk to me, and I’ll get back in the swing. What are you reading?”

Jason regarded him with a tremendously judgy face—10/10—which quickly morphed into one of a rogue taking on a challenger. 

“The spy game gave you a hankering for the thrills of a book club?” Jason beamed. “Well, buckle up, Dickface! Have you heard of The Chronicles of Chrestomanci? Ha, of course not. For all that you grew up in a circus, you’re as boring as the toast that toast eats. Shut up, let me explain to you about Nine Lived Enchanters.”

The night was dark—it couldn’t be anything else. Dick kept step with his first brother—  
The first one he’d failed.  
The first one he’d lost.  
The first one he’d ever had, even though he hadn’t wanted to claim him.  
—and steeped in the shame and the awe that this brother was the one that Dick had declared beyond saving.

He swallowed all that down and tipped his face to better see Jason’s eyes flash as he ranted (Dude, I’m just saying that if there was ever a little girl that it was okay to punch—and it’s not, my god, turn off The Eyes, this is a hypothetical conversation about fictional characters!—I would elect Gwendolen Chant EVERY FUCKING TIME).

“Chrestomanci sounds like Bruce,” Dick commented, later when they were ensconced in Jason’s safe house (apartment, this is CLEARLY his apartment, it’s lived in and settled, and that knowledge warmed his gut) gnawing on their fourth or fifth respective slices. “Just with the dramatic, dual nature. His dreamy, vague outer side is sort of like Brucie, ya know?”

Jason’s horrified face, with gaping blue eyes completely unshuttered, was like a second great gasp of air. And surely, Dick’s ensuing laughter was loud enough to drown out the buzz of both of their deaths—even if just for the next few minutes.

Or until Jason beat him over the head with a boxed set of novels. It’s not how a Good Soldier would go, but it’s somehow fitting of Robin.

\---fin

Fluttering upwards, scarce himself,  
After all the pain and fear  
Of his horrid sojourn there  
In that realm of flame and smoke,  
Lo! earth's happy sunlight broke  
On the bird's dazed view at last;  
But the ordeal he had passed  
Left a flame-spot widely spread  
Where the wind-blown feathers part  
Just above his loyal heart.  
So the robin's breast is red!


End file.
